RC4WD Trail Finder 2 RTR
RC4WD is kind of an iconic name when it comes to scale RC vehicles. Although their focus is mostly on scale, they offer other vehicles as well, like the Killer Crawler. Today I’ve got the pleasure of reviewing a truck that I’ve been eyeing for a while now, the RC4WD Trail Finder 2. I’ll be reviewing the ready to run version and hopefully answering some questions I’ve had, like what is it? Is it a crawler, trail truck, or shelf queen? We’ll take a close look at the TF2 RTR as well as test it on multiple terrains to see where it really shines. Let’s get to it!
The Trail Finder 2 RTR version arrived double packaged to my door step. The graphics on the box are simple, but clever. There is a window in the box so you can see what your getting before you buy it. That’s cool if you buy it off the shelf of your local hobby store. The TF2 comes with a quality manual, 2.4GHz radio, and the truck of course.
The ready to run trail finder is preassembled for the most part and all that is left to do is insert the bumpers, bed hooks, and battery straps. Oh, you of course have to install batteries into the transmitter and also supply a charged battery pack for the truck. I used a 2s LIPO for power, but we’ll talk about how it performed later.
At first glance, the TF2 is impressive, to say the least. There is a ton of metal on this truck. I like the overall layout of the truck, keeping it as close to the full size thing as possible.
The body is hard plastic, very similar the the old school Tamiya bodies. Not only does this make the body extremely durable, but is allows endless customization. The bed and cab are separate pieces held together by four screws and lock-nuts. Four screws and two body clips (in the bed) secure the body to the frame.
If you are an LED freak, you’re gonna love all the options RC4WD has put into this body. There are literally 18 spots for LED lights. Yes, that’s right, 18! Each of the tail lights are set up for 4 LEDs each, which allows for tail lights, brake lights, blinkers, and reverse lights. There are also 4 marker lights (one on each quarter) ready for LEDs, 2 headlights, 2 front blinkers, and 2 fog lights. That’s a lot of LED options!
Other features of the TF2 body are side view mirrors, windshield wipers, chrome door handles, and bed hooks.
Let’s talk about the side view mirrors. It is so difficult keeping side view mirrors on a vehicle, especially if you plan on rock crawling or driving on narrow, body scraping, trails. Oh yea, and rolling over. I was pleased to see the side view mirrors on the TF2 are made of rubber. They still look cool and won’t snap off when I’m driving too rough. I’m not sure why everyone doesn’t do this. They’re held in place with small body clips, it’s perfect.
The windshield wipers and chrome door handles are pretty straight forward and add greatly to the looks of the truck. The bed hooks I’ve already mentioned will need to be glued on. You may be thinking, “what are bed hooks”? Well, they are the little upside down hooks that line the outer top edge of the bed. They are used to strap in bed cargo on the full sized trucks. Newer trucks have the tie down loops inside the bed, but these older Toyotas had them lining the outer edge of the bed. I’m a bit curious to see how well they will hold up to some rough driving.
There is a small dash mounted in the cab with gauges and a few other details. Nothing extravagant, but it adds to the realism.
The last detail I’d like to point out on the body is the bed. It’s a dropped bed with molded fender wells and is painted flat black. I’m not sure if you’re along the same line of thinking, but drop down beds are a big deal for me. It looks so much more like a real pickup truck and just completes the look. There are four strategically places divots on the underside of the bed which takes the guess work out of adding a roll bar later.
Let’s take a look at this beautiful chassis. There isn’t much plastic at all on this thing. My mind keeps wandering, thinking about all of the modifications and realistic touches I can add to this truck and I haven’t even driven it yet. This is a customizers dream vehicle. Anyway, back to the review.
The metal chassis consists of two beautifully machined frame rails tied together by several cross members. The front and rear plastic rock bumpers are secured to the chassis with plastic cross mounts. The rear bumper was a bit warped in the box, but I was able to straighten it out easily by bending it with my hands. The side rock rails are also plastic and are screwed directly to the chassis.
The leaf spring suspension consists of three leaf springs and an aluminum shock absorber per wheel. The aluminum shock absorbers are actually fitted with an internal coil spring and very little oil. I’m expecting this combination to feel stiff and bouncy, like a real truck would. I’ll try this stock setup first, before making any modifications.
The front and rear axles are housed inside cast axle housings that look like the real thing. Inside the axle housing are well greased ring and pinion gears. The ring gear is attached to a spool, so there is no differential. This is an important feature in hardcore off road vehicles. I can’t tell for sure, but it looks like they used silicone based grease on the gears. Everything is bolted together tightly, but it appears thread-locker is lacking. I applied a bit of medium thread-locker to all the bolts in the axles before reassembly. There are no gaskets to be found on the axle, but the parts are well made and fit together nicely. I do believe I’ll keep a close eye on the grease inside these axles. I don’t necessarily think it will all work its way out, but it is a very real possibility for water to get inside, causing damage.
The scale 37×13.5 R15 Mud Thrasher tires look amazing and are made from a soft rubber compound. The white stamped steel 1.55 internal beadlock rims are clamped together with six srews and nuts on each wheel and are fitted with an internal aluminum ring to hold the X3 compound tires in place.
Pointing these meats where you want them is a powerful 153oz@6V of torque steering servo, which is mounted to
the frame for scale realism. Steering geometry seems to work great and the components are top notch. Even the steering knuckles are aluminum. This vehicle just screams quality, even the metal links are impressive to look at. Very high quality machine work was put into this truck.
The RC4WD 45 turn crawler motor is mounted to the single speed transmission with a pinion/spur ratio of 4.57:1 and an internal transmission gear ratio 1.78:1. An adjustable slipper clutch/spur gear is used to protect the internal components, though the only plastic gear I see is the spur gear itself. The spur gear is compatible with other brands, like Axial, Traxxas, and Robinson Racing. The motor mount can be rotated to ten different positions to fine tune motor position, though I think the stock position is perfectly fine.
A metal shaft throws power to the transfer case where two plastic telescoping driveshafts then transfer power to the front and rear axles. The new Hammer transfer case uses eight bearings, hardened steel 32pitch gears, realistic cast aluminum casing, and an internal gear ratio of 1.47:1. The transfer case looks like the real deal and is protected by a black painted skid/mounting plate.
The plastic telescoping driveshafts look just like the ones found on many Traxxas vehicles, but include a black metal ring to protect each end. Unfortunately, this ring did slide out of place during testing a couple of times.
The RC4WD TF2 uses a brushed ESC which they have named the Outcry. This ESC accepts both NiMH and LIPO batteries and uses an external 6V 5amp BEC, which supplies constant power to the steering servo. The ESC has a built in drag brake, external cooling fins, and a Tamiya style plug.
The XR3b 3 channel 2.4Ghz radio system is actually pretty comfortable with its foam padded steering wheel. There’s a blue brake caliper inside the five-star spoke steering wheel, which is a nice touch. The XR3b offers many options for control. You have the normal adjustments like servo reversing and trim knobs, but you also get throttle and steering endpoint adjustments and dual rates. The XR3b radio also has a third channel that is switched by a three point lever found on the handle and is easily activated with your thumb. So if you want to add a power winch for even more realism, the XR3b radio has you covered.
The RC4WD TF2 also includes a 4ch 2.4GHz receiver which is mounted inside a pretty trick mock fuel cell. It doesn’t appear to be water tight, but it looks cool. The 4ch receiver offers an internal fail safe with easily accessed fail safe set button.
TESTING:
The RC4WD Trail Finder 2 looks great and appears to be built like a tank, but how will it perform? What are it’s strengths, and weaknesses? What is it best suited for? Let’s find out!
Basic feel:
The RC4WD TF2 feels great and is a solid truck. It’s a bit time consuming plugging up the battery as you must remove the body to do so, which requires removing four hex screws, two on each side of the body. The battery is strapped in with Velcro straps and once plugged in, power is instantly supplied to the steering servo thanks to the external BEC. So, when the vehicle is switched off, you can still control the steering through the remote control. Forward and reverse however, are only activated when the vehicle is actually switched on.
The suspension on the TF2 is pretty stiff in stock form, which closely resembles a full scale production vehicle. There are many tweaks, adjustments, and/or upgrades to smoothen out performance and basically customize the truck to your liking.
Speed:
The TF2 falls into the category of fast crawler when it comes to speed. It definitely has plenty of power and goes a tiny bit faster than most crawlers I’ve tested. I was surprised when it pulled reverse wheelies during three point turns. Though it isn’t crazy fast, it gets to its top speed immediately. The TF2 had plenty of speed to accomplish anything I asked it to do except climbing an extremely steep and loose soil hill. But to be fair, some of my brushless monster trucks might not have made it either.
I found myself operating the vehicle mostly in half to three fourths throttle, with the exception of the occasional rock hop or long smooth path.
Power:
The TF2 has plenty of power to slowly crawl or lunge itself over obstacles. While the TF2 does has a slipper clutch, it still managed to produce enough grunt to pop a driveshaft off its steel universal ball. The good news is that nothing broke and I was able to pop it back on quick enough. There are metal rings that are supposed to prevent this from happening, but it must have slipped out of place. The first picture shows the driveshaft without the ring and popped off of the universal joint. The second picture shows everything where it belongs, including the metal retaining ring. I guess I’m glad the driveshaft popped off instead of something breaking when the front tires got into a bind. In the future, I’ll secure the metal rings with a bit of electrical tape and loosen the slipper clutch a bit, just to be safe.
Trail riding:
Trail driving is where the Trail Finder 2 is most comfortable and most enjoyable to drive. It handles different variations in terrain well and was able to climb steep inclines. I absolutely loved how the TF2 looked going along some local mountain bike trails.
The scale looks of the truck add so much to the driving
experience. It’s loads more fun than “driving” a regular crawler. Some of the different terrain variations on the trail consisted of dirt inclines, grass inclines, roots, rocks, gravel, and loose sticks. The TF2 performed great on all of them.
Mud:
The TF2 isn’t really supposed to go through the mud because the electronics aren’t water proof, so I stayed away from the sloppy stuff. There was however, some safer sticky mud along the way. The TF2 did great as it collected as much mud on its tires as it possibly could.
Traction:
The soft compound tires do an excellent job of finding traction wherever available. You could watch the tires compress and form over rocks and other obstacles providing almost slip free grip. Some tests were roots, mossy rock inclines, grass inclines, packed dirt inclines, and smooth rock inclines.
Rock crawling:
Well, in completely stock form, the TF2 had some difficulty getting over really rough rock obstacles. Part of this is clearance, but part of it was also the suspension stiffness. After removing the middle leaf spring from each spring pack and also removing the internal coil spring from each shock absorber, performance improved dramatically. At the end of the video I drive through a pretty gnarly rock filled gully, and the TF2 did great. Sure, it got hung up some, but it was nothing I couldn’t drive out of. I was without a doubt impressed.
Additional notes:
The RC4WD Trail Finder 2 performed excellently in all areas of testing. As noted above, I made a few adjustments to the suspension, but those were simple changes and it made a huge improvement on the way it performed. I think the TF2 is an excellent performing trail truck with the capabilities to go over some extremely rough terrain if necessary.
I had so much fun driving the TF2 through the mountain bike trails, I’m already thinking of other places to take it once the review is over. I was truly surprised at how well the TF2 went over the rocks in the rock gully. Don’t get me wrong, the TF2 is no “Killer Crawler” but it fits in with other scale trucks, especially with those simple suspension mods mentioned above.
Performance and appearance modifications are almost limitless for the TF2. RC4WD has a large selection of hop ups including 4&3 link suspension mods, softer leaf springs, shocks, body parts, and much more. If you’re the least bit creative, you can really make this truck your own.
I think what draws me to the the TF2 the most is its scale appearance. The thing looks awesome! I believe with a driver figure and a few visual mods, you could easily trick people into thinking a video of the TF2 was of a real truck. With that being said, I don’t see making many, if any, performance modifications that will take away from its realistic scale looks. The wonderful thing about this truck is that the possibilities are endless and you can make it just like YOU want it.
Take a look at how the black coated metal parts are showing their battle scars, it gives the feel of a real truck.
Battery life:
Unfortunately I don’t have a direct answer for this question as I never ran out of battery. Each time I tested the TF2 I started with a fully charged 3200MAH Dynamite 2s LIPO pack and was out testing for two – three hours. Granted, I wasn’t driving the entire time, as some of that time was finding different areas to test its ability, but I didn’t run out of battery. I’m going to have to say the battery life/consumption in this truck is very good, as it’s obviously more than I need.
Summary:
The RC4WD Trail Finder2 was a little too stiff with the factory suspension setup, but after removing the middle leaf and internal coil spring from each corner, it performed much better. I was impressed with the amount of grip the Mud Thrasher tires provided and the truck had plenty of power to climb over all types of obstacles.
So who’s this truck for?
This truck is for someone who can appreciate a well balanced performance/scale truck. I guess the only person I wouldn’t recommend this truck to is someone who wants a hard core ultimate rock crawler with 4-link suspension, coil over shocks, and huge tires. That’s not what this truck is. The TF2 is a scaler built of mostly metal parts for people who like high quality scale RC vehicles. On the other hand, I guess you could convert this truck into the ultimate crawler just mentioned, but why would anyone want to?
I can see myself making many alterations to the TF2 in the future, whether it be performance or visually based. I’ve just got to decide on the look I want. Keep watch for this truck to be in some future articles as I don’t see myself ever getting tired of the TF2. Let me know what you’ve done with your leaf sprung scaler in the comment section. I’d love to get as many ideas as possible, and I’m sure you guys (RCTech members) have loads of great tips.
Credits:
RC4WD
618 Blossom Hill Road
Suite 201
San Jose, CA 95123
Email: support@rc4wd.com Website: http://store.rc4wd.com
Horizon Hobby, Inc.
ATTN: Dynamite
4105 Fieldstone Road
Champaign, IL 61822
Main Phone: (217) 352-1913
Toll-Free: (800) 338-4639
website: http://www.dynamiterc.com